END OF THE KING AND OF THE GIRONDE

land of the emigres', practically the only resource the
country had left. When the measure passed over its
opposition, the Gironde functionaries in the provinces
did everything to hinder its execution. It opposed a
forced loan, but had no plan of its own for replenishing
the empty treasury. It hindered recruiting by writing
letters to the provinces in which the commissioners of
the Convention (chosen mostly from the Mountain),
sent to organize the draft, were called anarchists. It
opposed the establishment of a Revolutionary Tribunal,
the formation of a Committee of Public Safety, army
reform—anything and everything that could and did
save France from foreign invasion and chaos.

The Gironde's energies were absorbed in its fight
against Robespierre, Marat and the Commune. It
managed to have Marat arrested, but the Revolutionary
Tribunal acquitted him, and his partisans carried him
in triumph back to the Convention. Finally, under-
standing that the key to the situation was control of the
sections, it set out to capture them.

It has been explained that the sections were organiza-
tions resembling New England town-hall meetings.
Citizens of all classes, living in a certain quarter of
the city, would meet in the section, listen to public
speakers and discuss matters relating to municipal and
national government. It was the delegates of the sec-
tions who had ousted the old Commune from office and
had formed the Insurrectionary Commune that had
overthrown the monarchy. It is interesting to note that
while the Mountain accused the Gironde of wishing to
establish a federated republic, in order to protect the
provinces from legislation forced from the Convention
by the Paris radicals, the Mountain's chief supporter,
the Commune, was itself a federation of little republics,
for that is what the sections really were. They showed

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